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Monthly Archives: September 2009

Sitting in a training course on a new product I’m constantly amazed by how belief is substituted for rational analysis. The product is very nice in some areas, but the ability to market it as a ‘belief’ rather than the actual capabilities is staggering.

It helps when your product names redefine standard industry terms to create a misleading illusion that it can do more than it really does.

Had an awesome Fathers Day today, but what was really interesting was watching the dynamics of what makes up Fathers Day, and comparing it to Mothers Day.

There were 4 Fathers in the park today, with no sign of Mothers any where around. Now, you may all say “Fathers Day is for bonding with your children”. That might have been true in days gone past, but thank you very much, I’m pretty well bonded with Georgie.

I was chatting with the other fathers, and without doubt the way the day started was having their children come charging into the bedroom at some ungodly hour, with a bunch of hand-made crafts clutched to their chests, and some managed to get the breakfast in bed, but for many of us, it was dragged out of bed and having breakfast.

Comparing that to Mothers Day, where I (and all the other fathers that I surveyed) took the children quietly out of the house at the same ungodly hour, spent a good amount of time away from the house (say until about 9:30-10am) where we came back in (purchased steaming hot coffee in hand) to create breakfast for the mothers to have in bed.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not wanting to make it harder for Mothers, but there didn’t seem to be the recognition that for the most part, all the fathers wanted to do was have a decent sleep, be allowed to slob around the house all day, watch whatever sport happened to be on TV and that’s basically it.

Equality goes both ways, it’s already been shown that spending on Fathers Day is 18% of that spent on Mothers Day. Fathers Day is the least “important” holiday in the calendar – so how about we start looking at us poor blokes – rise up and take back the couch. No more of the Lifestyle channel, fuck gardening makeover shows, and for Fathers Day – a nice lie in then beer in front of the TV for the day.